


Make Love, Not War

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Anyway yeah, Assume Edelgard is 18 if that bothers you!, Bold of you to assume I keep track of everyone's ages, Crests (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, Hook-Up, I mean it's like still there dw but it's also pretty sfw probably idk I am not the right judge, Instead You Got This, Nenalata Writes Sylvain Boning Everyone I Guess, Non-Explicit Sex, This Was Supposed To Be Happier And Sillier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: "Hm, I should have made a move on the Imperial princess before things got this far. It could have changed everything."Or it could have changed nothing.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 15
Kudos: 116





	Make Love, Not War

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by that insane quote Sylvain casually spouts in the Blue Lions route. Was gonna make it silly. I did not. Whoopsadoopsies. Hope you enjoy regardless!
> 
> I'm [@NenalataWrites](https://twitter.com/NenalataWrites) if you want to come bully me.

Hubert is not pleased to learn the Professor will be accompanying her to Enbarr tomorrow.

“The Archbishop must have brought her here for a purpose,” he scolds her. “Do you truly trust the Professor’s word, that she chose to lead this class by her own will?”

“I do,” Edelgard says firmly. “You’ve made your point on the matter abundantly clear many times over. I’ll remind you of your place, Hubert.”

Hubert stiffens, like his soon-to-be-future Emperor has caught him in a scheme not of his own devising. His obedient bow does not convince her of his contrition. “My sincerest apologies, Your Majesty,” he says anyway. “I overstepped.”

He also oversteps when he sends spies to watch over her. Ill-trained, hastily-hired ones; their best have been sent on more important missions. Edelgard wonders if revealing such blatant, shoddy work is his own small act of protective rebellion. Even were it not so, it’s inexcusable. She’ll reprimand him later.

But for now, she wants to be alone.

She hears the current spy’s footsteps halt outside her bedroom door, then retreat after she rustles the bedspread enough times to be convincing. Good. Edelgard knows Hubert’s style; he’ll give orders to his network with strict criteria of acceptable tactics, and no further. These spies are former students and younger Imperial army recruits, trained only for this task. They won’t go out of their way to keep up the ruse, more afraid of their Emperor than they are for her shadowy left hand.

They won’t and don’t follow her when their Emperor stands on the window seat and carefully taps open the latch to the attic.

It’s draftier up here than it is on the second floor of the dormitories. Edelgard’s glad she kept her uniform on, although she wishes she brought a blanket if she truly wants to meditate alone a while—

Edelgard is not alone.

At the very end of the attic, a broad-shouldered, lanky, familiar form lies prone on the boards, safe and comfortable under the largest gaps in the rafters.

Edelgard wriggles forward and closes the trapdoor, ensuring it does so softly. Sylvain, to her surprise, offers a merry wave from his distant nook, but calls no greeting. She raises her hand back, baffled.

His arm drops. Her curiosity rises.

Sylvain is not the sort to remain quiet when he finds himself alone with a woman.

Before she can question her actions, she ducks under one beam after another, crawling along as undignified and awkward as a child.

“If it isn’t Her Delinquent Highness,” Sylvain predictably speaks up once she’s reached him. “Whatever could bring her to my humble hideaway? Not too noble for it?”

The commoners can’t reach the attic, but it seems moot to point out what clearly is a jest.

“I’m not too noble for anything,” she tells him. Sylvain snorts and tucks his splayed arms behind his head.

“Oh, wouldn’t dare to think otherwise.”

Sylvain’s still wearing his uniform, too. Other than a few spare wrinkles from the effort of climbing up here, too, it’s otherwise pristine.

“Not hiding from a…spurned lover, are we?”

“Are we?” Sylvain flashes her a cheeky grin. Edelgard glowers before she can control it.

“No. _We_ are not. I’m—”

She refuses to tell him of all people she’s _hiding_.

“Right,” he says when she refuses to elaborate. “Well, neither am I, then. I’m avoiding Ingrid. You know her, right?”

“Of course.” Ingrid is heir to a prominent House, too, if not a prosperous one. Edelgard almost pities her for the desperate, dangerous proposals the current Count keeps trying to marry her off with, like her Crest is a bartering chip. But the pity and potential commiseration ends there. Where Dimitri is, Ingrid follows.

Sylvain sighs. Somehow, the ends of Edelgard’s hair flutter. She scoots back. “Then you probably can guess why I’m hiding.”

She can’t, really, unless Ingrid _is_ the spurned lover. “I see.”

They sit in silence. Almost companionable, were he not so relaxed and she not so on edge. Every creak of wood in the wind beyond the roof makes her twitch.

“Is your spooky retainer joining us?” Edelgard jumps, and Sylvain huffs a laugh. “Oh, I see. _That’s_ why you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding,” she snaps back. Too quickly. “ _Hubert_ is my vassal. When I desire my own time, he understands and obeys.”

“Got it. But his spies don’t.” Edelgard doesn’t steel her expression fast enough. Sylvain’s laugh is louder now, and she can’t help checking over her shoulder. “Tell him he won’t last long as your _vassal_ if this is his idea of subtlety. He’s got a terrible face—for bluffing, I mean. I’ve played chess with the guy enough to know.”

It’s not like Edelgard can tell this Faerghus noble where the rest of their spies are. But he’s got a point; it’s disconcerting to know someone like Sylvain could pick out Hubert’s troops despite being ignorant of everything else.

“Noted.”

“Well, you were clever to evade him so long.” Sylvain stretches from head to toe. The movement emphasizes the graceful curves and hard muscles of his body. Edelgard stares at the floor beyond him.

“Didn’t you just tell me he’s predictable and disloyal?”

“No, but _you_ did.”

She frowns, but he probably can’t see it. “That’s not—he respects me enough that it wasn’t difficult to evade—to hide—ah, my alone time—”

“Take the compliment, Your Highness.”

The title sounds so…irreverent in its praise she’s taken aback and snorts. She claps a hand over her mouth, like she can stopper the sound from the past, but it’s too late. Sylvain cackles.

“That’s more like it. The princess has a sense of humor under that pretty little shell!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Edelgard says, but there’s no heat in her reprimand. “Your flirtations mean little to me.”

“But they mean a little?” Sylvain smirks at her. “I can work with that.”

“Your… _cravings_ know no bounds, don’t they?”

He rolls his eyes. “You know I’m _hiding_ from lectures, right? If that’s what you want to do, go find Hubert instead.”

She crosses her arms. “I don’t see a House Gautier flag anywhere.” She’s aware how petulant she sounds, but Sylvain is _right_. There is no reason for her to hide when she could discipline the _real_ delinquent. But still—“If you don’t like me being here, you’re free to leave, too.”

“Make me.” Sylvain’s flirtatious drawl is back.

And Edelgard can’t help but laugh, because here they both are, two delinquents hiding from maybe undeserved reprimands and responsibilities. Petty, childlike little complaints like she never had.

“No.” She scoots closer, making a great show of settling in. “We’ll just have to share this space. At least for now.”

At least for now, indeed.

“Why, Your Highness!” Sylvain gasps, sitting up so she can see him press his hand to his chest. “If this is a proposal, I accept!”

Moonlight trickles in through the closest attic window, illuminating his disingenuously-delighted eyes. A pretty shell of his own, Edelgard can’t help but think.

“That’s not for me to decide,” she tells him, more seriously than she wanted. “Nor you, I’d imagine.”

Sylvain’s cheerful mood darkens, and the moon dims with it. “Man, you really know how to kill the mood, huh?” Heaving a great sigh, he rests on his elbows, staring into the gloomy glass. “Yeah, you’re right. We’re just gonna get forced into arranged marriages with some…random nobles anyway. Grind up our Crests into that wonderfully vicious cycle.”

Not an ounce of pain tints the word. He could have said it as casually as listing tonight’s homework, if he ever had paid attention to it. Edelgard realizes she doesn't know.

She hardly knows anything about him save the broken hearts he left in his wake. Hardly knows anything about _anyone_ here. Random nobles, each one.

“I refuse to let that happen to me,” she says, more to herself than to him. She folds and unfolds her fingers, staring at each whorl and line in her skin. “I’ve sacrificed enough of my body to Crests.” Sylvain remains silent. “But…that’s not to say—I _will_ do what I must. For the peace and prosperity of the Empire.”

Sylvain scoffs, more laugh than disdain. “Lie back and think of Adrestia, huh?”

Edelgard startles, whipping her head around to face him. He’s smirking at her. The way he’s sprawled, half lying, half leaning on his elbows behind him renders his whole body eye-catching, like a perfect model posing for a portrait.

She knows how…popular Sylvain is. It’s hard _not_ to know, even did he not revel in the attention and longing gazes and spiteful words. Edelgard has never seen the appeal of such a man; it’s her own fate as Emperor, after all, forever in the public eye, and once the sun rises tomorrow to bloody many other tomorrows, admiring and hateful looks will be the only way people ever get to see her.

But here, now, back in the moonlight with stars and bitterness reflected in his eyes, Edelgard can see how the handsome lines of his face could make men, women, anyone want to memorize their angles with their fingers. With their—

Edelgard looks away. The heavens never have granted her enough light in the darkness. But now she feels they’ve decided to illuminate the redness of her cheeks.

“The Emperor and her spouse embody Adrestia,” she says curtly. “Adrestians are the only people I need to love.”

Sylvain startles her again by howling with laughter. She casts another paranoid glance behind her, like a battalion of Hubert’s spies have materialized. But of course the attic is empty save the two of them. “That’s a _lot_ of people to love! Wow, _scandalous,_ Princess.”

Edelgard glares with as much heat as in her face. “You know quite well what I meant!”

“I do.” The laugh has faded from his voice, but not from his lips, and she reminds herself for the _too-many_ time to stop staring at his lips. “But it shouldn’t be something you ‘must,’ do, you know?” Another laugh, but an embarrassed one. He tousles his hair, like it gives him an excuse not to meet her eye. “Ah, what am I saying. Of course—I bet you don’t—”

Edelgard has no clue what he’s going on about. “Of course I ‘must.’ Marriages broker treaties. Alliances. _Nations_. You said as much yourself. And my…my legacy, the von Hresvelg legacy must—”

Sylvain rolls his eyes. The moon must have emerged from whatever clouds had shrouded it, because the attic now feels flooded with its glow. “Right,” he says, scorn dripping from each word. “Marriage. Yeah, forgive me, Your Highness, but that’s not the biggest issue you face in the bedroom.”

Edelgard tucks her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, considering his words. Wondering what he’s not saying underneath them. Wondering if he knows what she fears.

“I refuse to leave everything I’ve…” She pauses, desperately wanting to confide in someone, agonizingly unable to. “I’ve toiled for, ruined myself for, will mean _nothing_ if I simply…hope for tenderness. I cannot risk my country’s future because I’m just waiting for some handsome Faerghus lordling to sweep me off my feet.”

She only realizes what she’s said after the words echo in the too-bright attic. “Or any, any old Alliance—”

Sylvain props himself up on one elbow, twisting his body to look up at her through long, dark eyelashes. “’Handsome,’ is it?”

Edelgard turns away, willing the cool night air to calm the foolish color in her cheeks. “You don’t need the encouragement,” she purses her lips. “You say so all the time yourself. Or is that another of your pretty lies?”

She’s not really one to talk hypocrisy.

Not even so many moons ago, in a moment of weakness, she’d asked the Professor what she thought of the Flame Emperor. Why? Why had she given in? Had she sought validation? Praise? Reassurance that maybe, _maybe_ she wasn’t so lost as she feared…?

“Is it another one of yours?”

Edelgard whips back around to stare. “ _What_?”

No accusing glare hardens Sylvain’s features. A slow smile spreads instead. “Do you think I’m handsome, Your Imperial Majesty?”

And oh, but the title in his mouth…

It makes her _shiver_.

And given that…that stupid, knowing grin quirking his lips— _stop looking at them_ —she bets he’s noticed. Of course he would. He’s…experienced. He _notices_ these things in people. Looks for them.

And all of a sudden, she wonders how he’s looking at her. What she looks like to him, this experienced, arrogantly handsome man. What he’s imagining.

“What I ‘think’ matters nothing to either of us,” she says, stern as she thinks she’s capable. “It’s not me you’re going to be forced to marry.”

A long, tense silence follows. The charming, sensual pose freezes. Sylvain heaves another dramatic sigh, breaking the tension, and flops back to the attic floor. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Quiet again.

_Probably_?

“I’m not talking marriage, though,” he speaks up again. His voice seems to caress the darkness. “And I sure hope you know that, or else this whole conversation just took a depressing turn.”

Edelgard snorts before she can help it, another ridiculous, unbecoming sound. “As if it were so cheery before.”

She expects him to crack another joke, bring things back to casual, insincere banter again, but instead he says, with surprising sobriety, “Is that really what you’ve resigned yourself to, Your Highness? A lifetime of meaningless, pleasure-free sex?”

The word freezes her.

A mildly teasing note returns to his voice. “You _do_ know what sex is, right?”

“ _OfcourseIknowwhatsexis_ ,” Edelgard almost shouts. She collects herself, struggling to control any nervous gestures—smoothing her hair, wringing her hands, adjusting her skirt. She does all three. “It’s just…not been high on my list of future priorities. Love isn’t what matters.”

“Well, on _that_ we agree!” Too cheerfully spoken. “But I’m not talking about _love_ , either.”

It’s the nighttime that sends the timbre of his voice shivering through her spine like that. It’s the seductive cover of darkness changing sound in her ears to a caress in her mind. On a normal day, she would hear the insincerity in his words, the coldness in his gaze. She would dismiss him for it, giving his actions and flirtations and existence minimal attention save vague revulsion. But now…

“Well, it’s not so different for you,” Edelgard says, trying to regain some semblance of authority. “Resigning yourself to a lifetime of chasing meaningless pleasure.”

She expects the words to sting, to make him recoil, but he leans into them like a cat into sunshine, almost. Sylvain sits up. She remains still.

“Oh, definitely,” he drawls. “May I tell you something, Your Highness?”

_No, you seductive cretin_.

Edelgard says, “Of course you may.”

Sylvain feels much closer than he is—or maybe they’ve just edged closer than she thought. Sylvain bends his head—because he’s tall, so much taller than her she could but doesn’t feel threatened—and whispers, “ _I fucking love it_.”

Edelgard hasn’t yet remembered she has lungs when he flops back down. Closes his eyes. Lets a faint smile curl his lips. “That’s the only _love_ I need.”

It is safe, Edelgard decides, to look him over if his eyes stay shut. Piece by piece, wandering along his body, wondering how many people have seen each part of him. Touched it.

Loved it.

Edelgard has no idea.

How much has someone like him ever bared? These vulnerable parts of himself he easily strips away and gives to anyone who asks?

No one has ever asked her. But maybe she’s—

Edelgard’s breath hitches when his smile grows. Surely he can’t know…can’t be offering…

She inches closer. Watches the steady rise and fall of his chest. Imagines how many people have pressed their ears to his heart, tried to hear it beat for them and them alone.

She doesn’t try, either. She’s not one of them. But she is…closer, somehow, inspecting the faint, faded freckles scattered across his nose, his eyelashes brushing fluttering kisses on his skin, that perfected seductive smirk tugging at his lips so disingenuously she wonders if he even is aware he’s smiling.

His lips.

Surely, surely he can feel her breath ruffling his already-ruffled bangs. But if he does, which he _must_ , because her mouth is almost touching his, he keeps his eyes shut, his breathing steady, his lips still smirking—

Edelgard presses hers to his. Impulsively—except it’s not. She’s fooling herself to believe otherwise.

Sylvain’s smirk remains unchanged when she pulls away. But now his eyes are open. Scorching her with their intensity.

Dangerous.

“Why, Your Highness,” Sylvain’s voice strokes the air between them, “I didn’t know you _loved_ me so.”

Edelgard almost regrets the whole thing.

“I’m not talking about _love_. And I hope you know that.”

She’s trembling.

“You’re trembling,” Sylvain points out. He sits up, but only a little, just enough for his burning gaze to rake her entire body.

Edelgard glares, daring him to mock her further. He can forget anything further if he does.

All Sylvain offers her is a slow, lazy blink. And the dangerous smile sharpens.

“Someone should warm you up. Wouldn’t want the next Emperor to freeze.”

Maybe her heart already has.

“Someone who knows how,” Edelgard agrees.

Her heart pounds, pounds, pounds. She can’t voice this…this thought, this fear for a silly married future, one maybe she won’t live long enough to confront or prepare herself for. But Sylvain understands. Or so she hopes.

“Well,” Sylvain’s firm hands come up, up, cradling her face, stroking his thumbs along her cheekbones. Tender, were it not for the heated promise in his voice: “It’d be my pleasure to be that ‘someone.’”

Edelgard lets herself fall into his arms while he rises up to embrace her. When he kisses her, it’s with all the care and gentleness she knows neither of them will truly ever experience.

“Don’t worry,” Sylvain whispers against her mouth. “Relax, relax. I’ll take good care of you.”

Any other time she might hate him for saying that. For looking at her with something close to sympathy, empathy in his eyes.

But he’s also looking at her with desire.

And tomorrow will change everything. He’ll never look at her like this ever again.

Edelgard wants to…wants to be…to be…

“Please show me. Show me how.”

They can’t even get fully undressed. It’s still too cold for that, even protected by these uneven walls around them. But Sylvain lays his jacket flat, and Edelgard lays her cloak on top, and with her back safe from the floor, she lets him unbutton her tunic from top to bottom, lets his hands caress every bit of skin laid bare. Their shared heat becomes almost stifling.

“I can’t,” she gasps, Sylvain’s stroking, curling touch bringing her somewhere unknown, “I can’t, I can’t, I—”

“Yes, you can,” Sylvain murmurs. One more twist of his fingers, his touch tender and clever on her most sensitive, vulnerable parts—Edelgard sobs a scream into her own hand, muffling proof of the pleasure crashing through her body. Sylvain tugs it away and kisses her through the rest.

When their hips press close, when he’s fully inside her, when he starts to move…

Edelgard wonders what it would be like if they ever could bring themselves to love.

His arms are strong and confident when they hold her. Her mouth presses frantic kisses on his collarbones, shoulders, neck when she can reach it.

And when she silences another scream into his chest, when he goes fast and hard and _fast_ then _out_ , at least Edelgard knows this is as close to love as either of them will ever get.

“I—thank you,” she says after, adjusting her tunic as best she can.

It is a…strange thing to say, she realizes immediately after. She hadn’t even meant to convey her gratitude for something she still doesn’t want to name. Sylvain shrugs and buttons himself up, seemingly unconcerned. His smile is soft and almost kind.

“No worries, El.”

Right away, she stiffens. “Please don’t call me that.”

That soft smile freezes back into charm. “Ah,” his voice is disarming and cold, “Forgive me. Your Highness—”

Just as harshly, Edelgard’s stomach drops. “Don’t call me that either,” she hastily cuts him off. Hot blood rushes to her face. “Edelgard is…fine.”

Something relaxes in the space between their two bodies.

“I’m glad, Edelgard.”

Edelgard’s room is blessedly empty when she returns. Her bed feels emptier. And she feels all the more blessed for it.

Five years after tomorrow offers few blessings. Any that dare to show their heaven-sent faces, Emperor Edelgard makes sure to cut down with fury and raging storms.

It is decidedly not a blessing to see Aymr’s heaven-sent sibling on the Tailtean Plains. The Lance of Ruin. Its Crest-bearer leans on it casually, like he’s been waiting for her after morning lessons against the doorway of the Black Eagles classroom.

Sylvain is impossibly more handsome now. And his charming smile, so much emptier. Eyes so much more insincere.

“You’ve grown much these last five years, Sylvain,” Edelgard tells him from a distance too close for safety.

Sylvain languidly pushes himself off the Relic and makes a great show of staring at her breasts through her reinforced armored dress. “You sure have, too, Edelgard,” he grins, his whistle sharp and deadly as his Lance. Edelgard can hear its cold cut of air through the screams and roars of battle. “What a shame it’s all meaningless.”

Sylvain hefts the Lance of Ruin, Edelgard readies Aymr, and they charge.

**Author's Note:**

> Wonderful, talented artist [BreadyCakes](https://twitter.com/BreadyCakes) shocked and honored me by drawing a comic about this fic! Holy crap!!!!! I can't believe my crackship fic got such beautiful art. [Go check it out.](https://twitter.com/NenalataWrites/status/1222065985466724354?s=20) You will regret not seeing it ;^;


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